Two Steps Forward
by VintageManniqueen
Summary: Betty/Gladys friendshipiness. T for language and alcohol.


**I'm going to apologize right now for typos and... other issues. Sleep deprivation! Woo!**

* * *

"Mrs. Corbett," Gladys commanded sharply, "I _will_ get to the bottom of this. I will find the real pregnant factory girl. Or, at the very least, I'll prove that She isn't me." She clenched her fists, hidden in the pockets of her coat. Betty could see the minimal movement through the fabric.

"That's all well and good, Miss Witham, if that's what you feel that you can do." Lorna made several quick motions with her pen on her clipboard before looking up to make eye contact with the pair before her. "However, I think you'll find your pursuit futile." She stared at Gladys cooly.

"Even if you can prove your… innocence, Miss Witham, there are higher orders above you and your father's money that will remain firm in the decision to remove you from Victory Munitions." She turned her cold gaze to Betty, who stood stoic, occasionally grinding her teeth. "And you, Miss McRae, I'm sure that you'll be wanting to keep your job here at the factory?"

Betty struggled to open her mouth and hoped that she came off as chilled from the air. "Y-Yes, Mrs. Corbett. Of course." She nodded affirmatively.

Gladys stood straighter and nodded to Betty in farewell. "Well, Mrs. Corbett, it seems that my parents may be heavily involved with the higher order that set up my departure. So we'll just see what-"

"McRae," Lorna interjected.

"Yes m'am?"

"Please be aware that I have the power to have Ms. Witham banned from your lodging place as well. If you wish to continue your friendship in that environment, I strongly suggest that you keep it away from this one. I would also suggest dissuading Miss Witham from another detective make-believe adventure."

Betty nodded again. "Yes M'am." She turned to Gladys with pleading eyes. "I'll see you after shift's end, Gladys," she said softly.

Gladys nodded to her and firmly stated, "Mark my words, Mrs. Corbett," before turning on her heel to leave the factory.

"You'll get it back, Gladie," Vera whispered as the brunette swished by her.

* * *

"Jesus, Witham! Are you trying to get all of us canned?!" Betty breezed passed her into the dim room and draped her damp coat over a chair.

Gladys followed suit, huffing and detangling herself from her purse and coat. "I didn't say anything directly involving you! I just demanded my own job back!"

Betty turned to face her and patted her cheek sarcastically. "Maybe demanding isn't the best approach in life, Princess." She pulled a bottle of scotch from the top drawer of the dresser.

"I'll need this all just to deal with your… antics," She muttered.

Gladys unceremoniously dumped her soggy belongings on the floor. "Are we drunks?" She took the mostly-full bottle from Betty's hand and raised it to her lips.

"I think if we were real drunks, there wouldn't be any left-over alcohol. We would have drunk it all, right?"

Gladys tilted the bottle in the blonde's direction. "I'll drink to that." She took a final swig before handing it back, at which point it was poured into mis-matched cups with the faintest beginnings of cracks in them. The mis-matched girls sank to the floor next to the radiator and leaned against the wall in unison.

"I can't believe Kate left."

"Yeah, well, you're not the one who kissed her."

"Hm. Well. I probably would have."

Betty, realizing she was trying to lighten the mood, showed a ghost of a smile. "You after my girl, princess?"

Gladys bumped her head into Betty's shoulder. "Well, she is very beautiful."

"Beautiful enough for you to kiss her?"

Gladys twisted her glass around in her hand. "Well, sure."

Betty snorted. "On the mouth? The way I did? The way that made her run back into the arms of a fire-breathing dragon?"

The brunette scrunched her nose and turned her head, as if to shield herself from said dragon. "Certainly not, if I knew it would stir that kind of reaction."

Betty took a long drink of the potent liquid. "Yeah, well, had I known, I would have left well-enough alone, too."

"She'll come back, Betty. She loves you."

Betty's drink was rapidly disappearing. "Not now, she doesn't. You didn't see her, Gladys. She was so disgusted. So repulsed. I never should have…" She trailed off and stared into the empty room.

"I think she's just scared, Betty. She doesn't know what it is to kiss men, let alone women. We're talking about someone who is… who is basically still a child."

"Thanks. Now I feel like a horrible, kid-lusting creep."

Gladys rolled her eyes and took the bottle from between Betty's legs before she could refill her cup. "That isn't what I meant and you know it, Betty McRae. She's just innocent. And in time, she'll recognize the love between the two of you."

They sat in silence for a moment and Betty tried unsuccessfully to snatch the bottle. Gladys returned it only after she'd finished her own glass, at what was also a somewhat accelerated pace. The burn had settled into a pleasant, dull warmth throughout her chilled body. The day's events weren't quite as glaringly harsh as they'd been and would be in the morning.

"How come you aren't afraid of me?" Betty's voice was flat, emotionless.

"Because I love you. And… why would I be? What is there to fear aside from your temper tantrums?"

"I do not have temper tantrums."

"You have tantrums."

"Do not."

"Do."

"Okay, fine. Say I do. But… You aren't afraid of me? Knowing I kissed Kate?"

Gladys subtly swished the drink over a sore tooth in the back of her mouth. "Again, why would I be? I fail to understand."

Betty sighed. "Now I really know you're bullshitting me. Would _you_ kiss another woman like that? Like you would kiss James? Or that little boy that was sending you letters?"

Gladys shrugged. "Maybe."

Betty leaned forward from the wall to look Gladys in the eye. "You would, now, would you?"

"Well, yes, given the right circumstances! I don't go around planning who I kiss."

Betty arched an eyebrow. "But the thing is, you're automatically set up to assume those people to be male."

"But I _would_ kiss a female. I'll kiss you if you don't take this liquor and move away from my face."

Betty sighed. "Okay, you'd kiss a woman. But would you love one? Would you want to love her, and make her your world, and put her in your home, just the two of you, a home that you built together with bits and pieces of unmatched furniture and dishes, all the way up to a grand old place filled with memories and keepsakes where you live together, kiss, have sex, and grow old?" Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes. "Would you want to marry her, and declare your love from the rooftops and hilltops and hold her to you until your last dying breath?"

Gladys sealed her lips tightly and stared at the glass in her hands. "I'm sorry that she left you, Betty. I'd give anything to bring her back here. I will do anything to bring her back to you. I won't rest until I can prove or disprove that she left solidly because she doesn't want you. I think that she does. I think that she'll work things out with herself, or God, or whatever, and ultimately, her love for you will come out victorious. And if she doesn't, then she's a damned fool, Betty McRae, and not worth your love."

"Will you help me find her?"

Gladys leaned her entire body into Betty. "I'll go out right now and start if you want me to."

Betty uncharacteristically kissed Gladys's temple. "You can't drive sober, in the daylight, let alone drunk and in the dark."

Gladys nestled into her. "That is a valid point. Can you drive?"

Betty lit a cigarette and took a drag. "Well, I used to drive a farm truck. So, possibly. I don't know how I'd do on city streets, but we could give it a go."

"James is never coming back."

"Don't say that. You don't know that. No one knows that. You can't be down before anything has a chance to be up."

Gladys sipped at her scotch. "Even if he does survive, he won't be back. At least not here. Not with me."

"I think you've had too much to drink."

Gladys shook her head. "We're young. Things change too much when you're young."

Betty freed herself from Gladys and retrieved the bottle she'd just knocked over. "How old are you, anyway?" She expected some sly remark about asking a lady her age.

"Twenty-one."

Betty whistled. "You're a fucking infant."

Gladys shrugged. "How old are you?"

"Old." Betty swallowed a huge mouthful.

"Come on, now, I told you I'd kiss a woman. Tell me how old you are."

Betty looked at her companion sideways. "Aha. That's part of the issue. I'm old enough that if I ever got a little too tipsy and planted one on you, I'd have to have myself put away somewhere."

Gladys gave a half-hearted smile. "You wouldn't kiss me anyway, you loon. How old is too old to kiss me?"

"Twenty-eight." Betty muttered into her glass.

"Oh, phhht! That's not even anything. Betty, we are both so very young. We have so much more to do with our lives."

"Yeah, if the Nazis don't blow us up first."

"Stop it. I'm making a serious point. We are so young. So many more things will happen to us in our lives. So many new things will happen… this month. This year! Can you imagine all the people we'll meet, and all the things we'll do, and places we could go?"

"I'd like to meet sobriety, I think," Betty said, placing her palm against her forehead.

"Well, I wouldn't." Gladys filched the glass from the blonde's hand and poured the liquid into her mouth, swallowing it all as it hit her tongue. She was well beyond the point of flinching.

"I think I should tell you to slow down, pal."

Gladys shook her head and closed her eyes. "I can't stand to be coherent right now. I am so completely and utterly ill of being worthless."

Betty sighed. "Okay, so you can't go back to VicMu. You didn't even need the job anyway. You've got Daddy's money, Princess."

"That's just _it_, Betts. I don't want Daddy's money! I don't want to be so worthless and useless and-"

"You've got to be worth a few mill! If you want to aid the war effort, volunteer with some of those classy girls at-"

"Damnit, THAT is the problem! I'm not worth anything that I didn't earn for myself! It's not just wanting to do my part for the war, it's wanting to be my own damn person! I want to make me what I'll be, not have Daddy do it for me!" Angry tears began to spill down her face, and her words made Betty think of her dream house, her dream house that she owned and worked for, and shared with, well, Kate.

"Hey, hey, hey. Calm down, Princess… Gladys. I understand you, I really do. It's just hard for me to imagine why someone would throw all that away in the name of independence. In my opinion, you did earn it, with all that sitting up straight and fancy party stuff. I think you earned an inheritance and then some."

Gladys shook her head. "You don't have any idea, Betts." She reached for the cigarette pack and Betty eyed her suspiciously.

"When did you start smoking?"

Gladys allowed Betty to light her cigarette for her and inhaled. "When did I not smoke?" She let out a puff.

Betty's lips curled into a closed-mouth smile and she shook her head. "You're something that I don't even know what. Mostly a silly infant."

Gladys playfully blew a puff of smoke into the blonde's face. "I might be too hep for you. Too bohemian."

Betty rolled her eyes. "Yeah, because me being.. attracted to girls isn't enough, you have to go and make us a really ridiculous pair."

The brunette lolled her head to one side. "I'm so very drunk, Betty. So drunk. But I'll remember it in the morning if you try to take advantage of me."

Betty looked slightly hurt by the comment. But Gladys had to make the jokes first before anyone else could make them. "I was only playing," she said.

To further her point, she leaned forward and gently pressed her liquor-laden lips to those of her blonde counterpart.

Betty's eyes opened wider in surprise and she sort of chuckled as she hastily pulled away. "Now who's taking advantage of who?"

Gladys smiled. "That's exactly the point. I'm so mysterious and unpredictable." She laughed at herself and leaned toward Betty again, pecking her on the cheek three times.

"I think I should stop your drink flow."

Gladys entwined their hands and sighed heavily. After a moment, she spoke. "I can't go back to that life."

Betty squeezed her hand in response.

"And I can't let you go on without knowing what Kate really wants."

Betty stared into the open space and a silent and unnoticed tear slipped along the curve of her cheek. "Maybe you're right. About us being young and moving on. It probably just wasn't supposed to be. In a year, I'll think it was stupid."

"In a year, you could be mooning after one gal and have another on your arm. She might even look like a movie star. Or _be_ a movie star."

"Maybe I'll find me a pretty little blonde with big blue eyes who likes to drink but can be a lady, too."

Gladys giggled. "You are a pretty little blonde. You're just not much of a lady."

But Gladys knew better, and she knew that Betty knew better. She'd set out in the morning to find _her_, even if she did have a few less-than kind words to spit in her direction. And, if she could stand in the morning.

"Betty," she whispered after a moment."

"Yeah?"

"My legs are no-longer functional."

"You can stay here."

"Thanks."


End file.
